Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger will deliver the commencement address to the Class of 2013 during University Commencement exercise to be held Friday, May 17, at Lane Stadium/Worsham Field.

University Commencement will begin at noon. More than 5,000 graduates will be honored at this ceremony. The ceremony will be streamed live on the university homepage.

It has been a long-standing tradition at Virginia Tech for the president of the university to deliver at least one commencement address during his tenure.

T. Marshal Hahn spoke four times while president; Joseph Eggleston spoke three times; and Julian Burruss and Walter Newman each delivered two commencement addresses as president.

William Lavery and Paul Torgersen each addressed graduates once while president. University commencement officials encouraged Steger, now in his 14th year as president, to give his first commencement address this year.

Steger has been Virginia Tech president since January 2000 and recently has garnered fame as a “builder president.” This Virginia Tech-educated architect and engineer has overseen the largest building boom in university history.

Since Steger became president, the university has added almost 2.7 million square feet of space with an additional 430,000 square feet under construction or in design.

Steger has spent virtually his entire career at Virginia Tech leading it from one superlative to another, driven by the goal to provide the highest quality education possible for the students.

Since 2000, the university has increased its research portfolio by more than 300 percent, grown enrollment from 27,869 to 31,087, increased graduate enrollment by 12 percent, raised more than $1 billion in private funding, formed a school of biomedical engineering, created a school of medicine, constructed a Center for the Arts, and joined the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Early in his tenure, Steger charted a course to bolster the research enterprise and compete among the nation’s top research universities. He has overseen creation of broad-based research institutes capable of garnering large-scale, multi-disciplinary sponsored research grants and the establishment of the Virginia Tech Research Center -- Arlington. He has also made significant investments in selected life science programs. University sponsored research has moved from $192 million in 2000 to more than $450 million today.